


Caregiver

by Requiem (GoldenHavoc)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batman: Year One, Eldritch vibe, It's not that easy, Other, Scarecrow as separate entity here and yet..., What if Scenario, child Jonathan, creature - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 03:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18490828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenHavoc/pseuds/Requiem
Summary: "Jonathan. Talk to me.""No! You’re a demon. An envoy of evil! Granny said I mustn’t talk to them. She said I mustn’t let myself be guided to sin — by no one!"Scarecrow balanced the jagged edge of his chin on one of the mud-coloured gloves the old woman had put on him so discontentedly. The leather was rough and bloated from last week‘s monsoon, but discomfort proved none of his striking characteristics. What sense made a Scarecrow without hands? As much as a hanged man without a neck, he supposed. The image splayed a grin on his distorted face."Granny also said you weren’t allowed to read that book, and you did it anyway," he said lightly. "What was it called? Ulysses? The cover was as blue as the bruises she’s made you wear because of it.“Jonathan dug his cheek deeper into the pillow and pulled the blanket over his head.





	Caregiver

 

The house weighed itself to rest as the storm brew far in the sky and rumbled across the barren land.

The shadows of trees bent and rose in the wake of thunder. As lightning came, they stretched and travelled through the windows to strangle each other on the ceiling. Fall had come early this year, and the wind it sowed swung the branches with harsh, rough blows, captured in an awry dance of figures merging, melting, protruding two heads and five arms which were hopelessly battling each other. 

Jonathan watched them play their game born from a dimension much more different from the one he’d been dropped in so miserably. The moon's light that dove in through gaps clung to his face and washed dark furrows upon where the wrinkles of adulthood would gather one day. 

Here, however, he was a child, and he lay awake in a bed as long and tall as he’d grow to be; but he couldn’t find any sleep in it.

The place between his kidneys Bo had kicked him in throbbed like a second heart when he turned on his side. Although he’d been able to press his lips to a grim line and eat the soup without Granny noticing his pain, there was nothing to distract himself from the torment now. The pain had acquired the strength of a dull tambourine that made him gulp each breath with a cramp. 

A whimper cut from his mouth as he tried to move his arm and the next wave of agony bit into his nerves. He closed his eyes and quiveringly recited a psalm of Solomon to find calm. It never worked, but he knew nothing else that would. What it brought instead were more hot tears gluing to his eyelashes.

Scarecrow stared at the child with his arms hanging in front of his body and eyes like abysses. A gaunt, sinewy creature, the dented head tilted slowly, creating an impression of curiosity the misshapen face wouldn’t give way on its own. Even with his mouth curling, the seams on its corners strung tight; one could only speculate whether they showed joy or grief. Both emotions had never been planned for a Scarecrow to portray.

Scarecrow would’ve had to be blind to not realize how dreadful the little human felt. But, strictly speaking, he didn't have eyes as such since buttons sewed on cotton wouldn’t suffice for the function of seeing. And yet, eyeballs, pupils and iris posed mere accessories he didn’t need. He saw all that was there to see; and what he saw was the boy shaking on his mattress.

How long he’d been standing there and stare wasn’t clear nor measured by time. He didn't care much either way, used to stand and be eaten away by nothingness. The clock’s tick and what meaning it fed remained an enigma to him. He was merely able to distinguish day from night and dusk from dawn. Later, he might depend on more, but this rough division served him well enough for now. 

He had memorized the boy's daily routine and only appeared when he was sure nobody would disturb them. And by _no one_ he meant the old witch practicing her poisonous mischief somewhere down the floor.

As soon as he spent a thought on her, a creak along the house’s framework caught his attention. Crunching, he turned his head aside assuming he would hear footsteps in the hallway. He waited. Waited. His clawed hands clenched. No one came. Everything was quiet. Mere imagination, another branch chafed by the wind.

 _Let's hope so. She hates the whining more than I do._ he thought. 

It had happened twice that she caught the boy talking to him. As a result, she proceeded to force Jonathan into the cathedral, screeching about his hookup with evil spirits and that he’d have to undergo purification to be cleansed of their influence. 

Scarecrow took this as a grave insult. After all, he wasn’t a _ghost_. He was way more than that.

…Well, he would be. Soon. Otherwise, he wouldn’t choose to hang around here.

Jonathan called out to him as he knocked his little fists against the locked doors when the crows flew through the roof’s remnants. Leaning against the wallwith his arms crossed, he listened intently to the song of the boy’s lament. Waited till the crows flew back into the sky cackling, beaks red as autumn from pecked skin. Sucked in each detail and sound like air. But he didn’t raise a knuckle. 

The old woman came back. He lifted his hat as she passed, fully aware that if she’d seen the gesture, seen _him_ , she’d have put her hands knotted by arthritis in front of her breasts and drawn a cross over her withered heart before she’d sunk to earth passing away. 

He could have told her this repulsive vessel beneath her rotten complexion was barely worth of the devil's longing, but sadly enough her ears were deaf to his laughter too.

One day, he hoped Jonathan would speak with his voice instead of his own so they could both be heard. 

She would kneel at their feet and keep her hands folded in front of them, begging to _please_ not cut them off. And they would smile mildly and cease her whimpers with a hush, assure her not to part her hand from her arm.

They’d cut her fingers off instead. One by one. And revel in her screams.

The night was warm despite the storm. Plagued by recurring scenes of past hours, the boy lay spun in his cocoon of memory and shame. Scarecrow found him often like this. Still, he never got tired of counting the stains and cuts that had been added to the collection.

Sun-bleached straw parted from his patched throat as he deattached from the hideous wallpaper. His limbs buckled and crashed with each angular movement he made; an echo, treacherously tender beneath silence and the suppressed whimpers of the child. He had to practice it, had to give his gait suppleness, his stand something solid. Otherwise, he would never be more than his own puppet. And he was tired of being led on.

The sounds Jonathan produced in his grief were the only music he liked. The first time he heard the crying was a vague memory, hidden in the towering cornfield which he patrolled nailed to the staff. He’d been doomed to this task, a servant with no contour, a soldier without a brain. A crippling tool, born for fear. No veins to pluck, no flesh to peel, no nerves, no suffering. He was indestructible and dead, so dead he had been, year after year, harvest for harvest, in drought and abundance, in grey and gold. And it had been good, _good_ for he had experienced nothing better than to exist without knowing what life was.

Then Jonathan, trembling, had thrown himself into the dust mere feet to his right and pressed down flat to escape the howling pack that hunted him. Back bent, arms crossed over his tousled hair, his nosebleed moistening the seeds underground. Scarecrow’s head turned to listen more intensely to his hasty prayer. A tendon had seized him. A call for help. The desperation of humankind scattered in the wind and for the first time the breeze blowing around him gained taste. He breathed in and wondered about the hunger it awoke. Never before had Scarecrow wanted to listen, never had he felt the rage they spoke of when greed soaked the fields. The background laughed, ugly, barking noise. The child’s breath was a whistle. God. _God_. He called out to a God. Where was he, his God? Not here, not this time, not at any time. Never. Non-existent.

Scarecrow's pinkie rolled in cracking. He had no idea he could do that. He had never felt the need to, never tried.

 _Stop it._ he said, his voice a ribbon that fluttered in the air, stealing strength, thorns, treachery. The threads that mutilated his mouth stretched into a grin. A real one. 

_It will be alright. I’m here._

Jonathan's crying stopped that day. And still, the Scarecrow listened up soon as his next aria poured itself into the void. The hunger had persevered and burned, boiling his shell from within till it hardened to clay. He didn't care.

He didn't really know why he constantly dropped in by this worm who hated him, and why he attended his disgusting, human misery as if there was something sublime about it. Still, he stayed and left, walked away only to turn on his heel and come back anew. Followed him like a stray dog, his teeth filed to a knife’s edge. He was clueless where else to go. He had never wanted to go anywhere until now. And now, this want had put him on a leash. Or was it someone? The rope around his neck swung like a pendulum in front of his skeletonized chest.

"Poor darling,“ he breathed with outdated verve, the rehearsed phrase almost lovely in the narrowness of this scanty world they shared. His voice dragged itself through several octaves, ending in a ruffling bass that deemed in no way inferior to the moan of a living dead. "What have they done this time?“ He heard Jonathan's breath falter in his throat. The few muscles under his skin tensed to defend themselves.

"Go away. I don't wanna talk. You're not even real," he squawked. Another sob fought its way out of the slender lung. Scarecrow ignored it and crouched over the bed. In the filter of clouds hiding the moon's lean body, his legs adapted the stagnant nature of a spider.

"Why do you say that? I’m as real as you and the glass that keeps the rain from falling into the room. You know saying this hurts my feelings.“ He said it with reproach. Jonathan kept his back turned on him. The plates of his spine stood out like piano keys under the thin layer of flesh. Scarecrow realized how easy it was to imagine himself playing them. Applying the smallest pressure to each, they would suffer fractures, break by chance. He knew hazelnut shells more **robust** than this child.

"You have no feelings. You don't even have a heart."

"Heart?“ In playful astonishment, Scarecrow put a hand to his chest covered in checked fabric. His creaking fingertips pushed at the place supposed to hold his pulse. There was none; only a hollow space with no intention to be filled. He clicked with a tongue that didn't exist any more than his organs, but he spoke and it worked just fine. How masterfully the imagination and a wish could deceive the sound mind of a bitter soul. It was downright funny.

"That's right. They forgot to implant me one. Like everything else, apparently. Such sloppy work. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t nagged by the birds that much. They prefer warm prey."

Jonathan jerked at the remark, then fell back into his shaking rigor.

"I know what you are,“ he whispered harshly, the sobs stuck between his teeth. The amusement of Scarecrow at the boy’s resort to aggression was immense. Humans trusted their most primal traits soon as danger wrapped around their necks, clammy and cold as slime. The cocktail of fear, adrenaline and sweet salt weighed down the air and put balm on their scarred senses. How primitive. How grand.

"Oh yeah?" He rose to full, sweeping height. His stake-like anatomy threw darkness over Jonathan's puny limbs and the wall. From a distance, short as it was, it resembled black blood mixed with spit. 

When he stirred, the sinister outline stirred too and he liked this more than ever. He enjoyed having his own figure and the knowledge that the boy‘s eyes widened in shock reinforced his triumph. It gave him another aspect of reality he had not yet perceived before Jonathan stepped into his life.

Furthermore, it was through him that he attempted what mortals called life. Movement. Direction. Control. Change of time. Even if _life_ might have been far-stretched, considering his new existence merely took place in the head of one traumatized boy and they both knew it.

...Well, _Scarecrow_ knew it. Jonathan wasn't sure yet. And it was better, Scarecrow thought, if it stayed that way. 

"Jonathan. Talk to me."

"No! You’re a demon. An envoy of evil! Granny said I mustn’t talk to them. She said I mustn’t let myself be guided to sin — by no one!"

Scarecrow balanced the jagged edge of his chin on one of the mud-coloured gloves the old woman had put on him so discontentedly. The leather was rough and bloated from last week‘s monsoon, but discomfort proved none of his striking characteristics. What sense made a Scarecrow without hands? As much as a hanged man without a neck, he supposed. The image splayed a grin on his distorted face. 

The mattress groaned softly as he pushed his lanky frame onto it. His boots, lined with chunks of earth, hung over the bed‘s edge as he stretched out. Had he reached far enough, his stiff fingers could‘ve combed through the thin strands of Jonathan's hair. But he didn‘t. Not yet. There was still time for this sort of things. 

He was old, older than this house and the trees surrounding it. Patience was a virtue he‘d been built for to learn and restore.

"Granny also said you weren’t allowed to read that book, and you did it anyway," he said lightly. "What was it called? _Ulysses_? The cover was as blue as the bruises she’s made you wear because of it.“

Jonathan dug his cheek deeper into the pillow and pulled the blanket over his head. Streaksof hairpoked through the coarse fabric.

"I had to make up my mind. Either me or the book. Go away.“ 

Scarecrow sighed. It annoyed him to no end that he understood his decision. It annoyed him even more that the boy still opted to try excluding him just to please _good_ ol’ Granny. He would not succeed, not anymore. He had called that day, pleading for a god.

Now, he was here. Now, he would not leave. And since he had appointed himself God and was still young and inexperienced in this position, he needed a disciple to teach him what it was like to be worshipped. Actually, they both had a lot to learn yet.

"Of course you chose the book because you’re _so_ clever.“ Ash rolled in his mouth, crackled at the vowels. "And now it smoulders in the fireplace and gets eaten by flames. Nice try, Jon, really. We should work on that." Jonathan was silent.

"I told her so," he said at last, and this time the childish frustration of lips bitten through hit Scarecrow pure as frozen water. He grabbed the edge of the blanket and revealed the secret underneath, bringing out a reddish face that looked up to him with defiant, tear-damp eyes. What a miserable picture. Scarecrow liked it. "I tried to explain her that it was only literature and nothing bad," Jonathan repeated hastily. "I really did!"

He had. Scarecrow had stood at the window and witnessed the spectacle, the old woman spewingher threats oh so mildly, her voice a needle that drilled through the boy’s temples till he cowered and nodded.

Scarecrow leaned back and pulled the brim of his hat deeper into his loose forehead. The pillow was too soft for him and the feathers drilled into his back, but he avoided complaining. The play of the trees on the ceiling had become tired and glided in sluggish spirals and circles. He raised his hand and formed a canyon with his finger and thumb. It threw up a dog-like creature. He let it jump and bark.

"I know, boy. But you also know that she never believes you. The only words she trusts are that of the Bible and the priest," he said quietly. He felt Jonathan's impatient gaze jump from his hand to his face. He bent two more fingers and the dog grew teeth. _Snap snap. Your leg is off_. _Oopsie Daisy._

"You called me a demon. If the priest took one nasty look at you and said you were a spawn of the devil, she’d push you into the oven and turn the heat up without batting an eyelash. You know the story of Hansel and Gretel, don't you?"

"No."

"No, of course not. I forgot, fairy tales are also written by Satan these days. Poems too, well, what remains there then?“ He giggled cheerlessly, put his other hand on his fist and bounced both up and down with his thumb and little finger spread. The shadow of a bird with enormous wings scurried across the barren ceiling. This time, Jonathan turned his attention to it and his cheeks turned pale. Scarecrow tensed as a small hand groped for his shirt and tugged. Children's nails dug deep into wool and linen, he realized.

“Stop that. Please.“

"And what if I don't?"

"You frighten me."

"That's the purpose of everything, isn't it?" Scarecrow asked grimly. “Frighten others. The God of your bible uses fear to subdue his subjects as well.“

He played with possible flight routes, raised the bird to a giant and shrunk it to a mouse. Then, he brought it so close till the boy's reflexive twitch bored him. The wood of his arms gave a muffled sound as he stretched them and the bird disappeared as a fluttering point in the distance.Jonathan breathed out in relief beside him.

"Thank you," he said, hiding his face by Scarecrow's side. He didn’t react to it. The words irritated him more than the touch. _Thank you_? He didn’t understand that. It sounded strange and unreasonable for his kind.

If he wanted to stick to the truth, much was strange to him. Speaking, leading, bottlenecks and control. The decisions. Everything was so… alien for the creature he’d been built to be. He remembered only schematically how the ancestors of the Keeny's had lowered him into the field and tied him to a beam. He thought of melting days and flooded nights to follow. He thought of the merciless sun, the cold that couldn't harm him and the crows serving as his murdering cronies in his loneliness. He had no one, knew no one. He had never learned to know anyone and that was fine, that was the rule. Scarecrows chased the birds away, the very reason for their existence. So why should he ever ask for more? Why strive for something that wasn’t what he’d been destined to do?

"I despise your God," he said, and didn’t know why he felt the urge to speak these words out loud.

Jonathan turned and put an arm around Scarecrow's thin waist. The latter took a rattling breath. Again, he wondered what he was doing here at all. Maybe only to lose the mind he had gained so shortly.

"You should sleep. Tomorrow, all will look different. Well... most of it, I guess.“

"I can't." He looked to the boy who snuggled up to him with such urgency the fabric creased between his fingers. It was sad. He’d have almost preferred had he spit at him instead, laid down under the blanket again and howled his eyes out.

"Why’s that?" He asked quietly, torn between disgust and something he was incapable of describing. Jonathan hid his face in the semi-darkness between his body and the mattress.

„Their laughter. Their mockery. Tomorrow...I don't want to go to school. I don't want to sleep and then go there so they can do it again. I don't want that anymore. I don't want to be a victim."

Scarecrow felt strangely numb. This was a new emotion and its simplicity startled him. He didn’t know if he wanted to help or destroy this child. He hadn't known that at their first meeting either. He wondered if he would ever be clear about that.

"I understand that," he said, carefully weighing his voice to add just the right amount of hypocritical sympathy. "But Granny won't allow you to stay home, kid. You’ll go and they’ll wait for you because that’s what they‘re meant to do. Then they’ll scream and laugh and throw you in the dirt. Their fists will grab your hair and drag you up on it because... they are... they‘re human beings. Humans are just like that."

"Why?“ asked Jonathan. His grip tightened around the emaciated body as if it brought him comfort, even though Scarecrow had no comfort to give. "I mean, why me? Do I... have something about me? Is it my fault that they hate me?“

Scarecrow looked at him. Their eyes met, a fresh front of tears shining under the boy’s eyelids. Scarecrow swallowed. What happened here? The taste of misery crept through his hollowed neck.

"No, Jonathan. It's not your fault. It’s the fear. They’re slaves to their instincts. Everyone is.“ Jonathan blinked.

"They aren’t afraid of me. I'm not scary,“ he said tentatively.

Scarecrow shook his head so much he worried for a moment it’d fell off.

"No." He brought a hand to the boy’s thin face and cupped a cheek in his splintering palm. He wiped away the tears that still dampened the skin. "I'm talking about _your_ fear. They want it. Everyone wants it,“ he said. Crows fluttered before his inner eye. "The panic that spreads on your features like a whore when they come. The horror in your posture. They have to break you because they themselves are afraid of being broken. To rouse this fear in others becomes the content of their life, the addiction, the stigma." He paused. A dark thought crept up, nestled under his palate. "Think of your Granny. She ain’t any better." Jonathan's gaze shimmered with confusion.

"What are you talking about? Granny loves me. ... in – in her own way."

Scarecrow smiled sadly at him. He put a finger to his dead lips.

"Don't you hear her?" He pretended to form his hand into a funnel and listened. "If you’re very, very quiet, you can go and see what she’s doing. She’s in the kitchen. The witch cooks." Jonathan’s confusion kneaded into distrust.

"It’s one o'clock in the morning.“

"I know." Scarecrow straightened up and prodded him, pointing to the door. "Go. You’ll understand what I mean. And then, you’ll understand what _true_ fear can do.“

Jonathan stared. Scarecrow could literally count the cogwheels behind his forehead, and watch them work crytically.

"Come on, Jonny. Trust me. It will help you,“ That his words were meant truthfully for once was the cruelest thing he could have done.

Jonathan got up, standing next to the bed undecided. Seconds, minutes, nobody paid attention to it. Then, he turned to the door. He went out into the hall, leaving a narrow, bluish gap. His brawling footsteps could still be heard several feet away. Scarecrow crossed his arms behind his head and looked up to the ceiling.

 

He lay there and laughed, enchanted by his own idea. It sounded like scissors scratching metal. "Bake bake cake / The baker called the name /

Who wants to bake good cakes must / hack her neck first,“ he sang crookedly. Why hadn't he considered it earlier? Oh, it had been too simple to offer him the source of evil on a silver platter. He thought winning over the boy's trust would be easy, but he had underestimated the grandmother's influence. Despite the suffering she’d already thrown upon this clattering soul, he stood by her. She was the only caregiver he’d ever known. Scarecrow's grin ripped wrinkles into the linen of his cheek. She was the red ribbon squeezing around the boy’s throat like an umbilical cord. Well. Some ribbons had to be cut to allow others to knot.

And suddenly he understood why he was here and not on the field. Why he would live forever in the head of this boy. What reflected in Jonathan's eyes was the toothless grin of a monster in young bloom. No more than a weeping lump of clay for now, able to become a beast more powerful than other beasts he had encountered before. A creature he had to nourish with his knowledge, not only like a god, a mother too. Because there was only one subject he knew. What he’d been made for. 

"Fear,“ he whispered. Fear. Nobody heard him. He was satisfied with this answer.

Minutes hung like hours in the unadorned room carrying themselves along. Then, Scarecrow heard footsteps again, the taping sounded faster, more hysterical. The door swung open and closed with a restrained bang. Jonathan gasped, clinging to the brass bar of the door. Scarecrow looked at him from the side. Yawning, he sat up and let his elbows rest loosely on his knees, his chin flanking his hands. In the boy's face pure bewilderment scored itself with unbelieving vulnerability. Scarecrow almost felt pity for him. Almost. If he had known what pity was in the first place.

"You saw how she tried it on me, right? She does it all the time, refining her recipe. All this effort just to punish you and lead you further onto God's path. That's _love_ , isn't it?" His voice sprung from mockery to rejoicing and from rejoicing to grave-deep contempt. Jonathan leaned in the doorway and let it all pass over him. His quickened pulse poured into Scarecrow's ears as his prayer had done back then, loud and chaotic and so terribly sore.

"Fear is power, Jonny," he pondered and rolled his fingers through nothingness, pretending to stroke a few reddish fringes from Jonathan’s forehead. Although his sharp nails didn't reach him in earnest, scratches appeared on the sweaty skin. Jonathan hardly noticed the blood dripping over his forehead. He felt numb on the inside. “And he who has power directs the destinies of the world, don't forget that. Everything is controlled by them. They will use it against you as often as they can. Prevent it – become fear yourself!“ Jonathan didn’t answer. Scarecrow nodded to the Bible enthroned on his bedside table like a relic. "Your first lesson then. Be a good boy and take out the trash.“

Jonathan did not react. Scarecrow gritted his teeth with impatience. Calm. Calm. He needed

"I'll help you," he assured him. "I will be your teacher. But you have to obey your teacher. Only then can I teach you what I know.“ Doubt split Jonathan's bare face into a grimace. _’But how?'_ it seemed to ask.

"Your Granny has found a method," Scarecrow replied curtly. Jonathan didn't even flinch. The scenery he’d just experienced was too vivid. The cut rat. The blood. The suit he had to wear for the chapel. The crows... the crows and their beaks. Their claws.

Scarecrow saw the crows too. His thoughts synced with his, gained wings, something that cramped violently just to open further. Was that a heart? Did he have a heart? Maybe it belonged to the boy, but this didn’t matter. It struck, it scratched, it fought _inside him_.

Jonathan's gaze fell onto the bible. After a while he took it in his clammy fingers and went to the window. The rain pelted against the window pane. He opened it and threw the book into the open.

With a heavy smack it fell into the mud. Scarecrow laughed at the sound.

“Good, Jonny! Well done." Heg grinned at him as best as he could. "Am I a demon now? An angel? Maybe I’m both, who knows? But does it really matter? Anything is possible, you only have to be able to imagine it. The bible knows as little about me as your granny does." Jonathan's eyes looked wide and unbelieving into the emptiness of the world, turning his back. "Do you still want to pray to someone whom you all worship with such vigor? Who makes you suffer aware that you’re innocent? He’s just like the children in school. All he wants is your fear."

The last words seemed to act like a stick forcing the little head in his direction. Good. He finally listened. Listened _to him_.

"No,“ Jonathan said. His voice was a mere whiff, carried away by the gust that clapped drops of water against his back. A dull shimmer lay in his eyes. "God no longer gets my fear. Nobody gets it.“

“Wonderful. We might even get to the part where you actually mean it,“ Scarecrow croaked. He patted the spot to his right. “Come to bed now, I’ll sing you to sleep. You must be tired. Tomorrow, we'll talk about what to do with Bo."

Jonathan came. Slowly, limping, as if a wound weighed him down, but he came. Scarecrow praised it. He had never owned anything but the clothes on him made of straw and rags.

But the boy,... the boy belonged to him now. Him alone.

 _So,_ he thought, when Jonathan got back on the mattress and curled up next to him, _That’s how it feels like being God._

He remembered what people did to alleged witches who posed an insult to their God. The old hag had probably lain to rest in the meantime, and would soon snore in her own bed, a crucifix hanging proudly above her loveless face. 

Scarecrow smiled. There would come the time she’d be afraid of closing her eyes. And when it did, he’d be there, waiting, wielding revenge.

He hummed a melody old as the earth he had been pinned to, noting how Jonathan’s tension slowly melted away, drawing him closer to him till flannel touched skin. He sensed the warmth pooling through, the shiver it shed and the goosebumps it offered. Sighing, he took it all in.

He was alive. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello^^
> 
> I hope you liked this little trip into a What If scenario of Scarecrow being a mixture of an eldritch creature and Jonathan's own imagination rather than the mere mask he chooses to wear. This story has been in my folder for a while now and back then I just wanted to put the scenario in words^^ I hope you liked the story and I'd be happy to read your opinions on it. <3


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